“STICK FLY” LIFE UNDER A MICROSCOPE.

Lydia R. Diamond’s “Stick Fly”—the poignant family comedy/drama about a weekend with an affluent African-American family on Martha’s Vineyard—has a rich Chicago-based origin story dating back to its Congo Square Theatre debut in 2006. When it broke through to Broadway in 2011, Diamond’s celebrated work joined two others written by black female playwrights that season. Back in Chicago, Windy City Playhouse mounted a Chuck Smith-directed revival of the show in 2015, which brought Diamond’s work to the attention of Writers artistic director Michael Halberstam, and has now led to the Ron OJ Parson-directed revival that opened Wednesday in the Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols Theatre.